an opinionated sports blog

March 18, 2013

Before we get into our lead up to the funnest tournament in all of sports, NCAA’s March Madness, let’s take a moment to talk about Canada’s national mixed martial arts treasure, Georges St. Pierre.

First, and this is completely aside from what this post is really about, but St. Pierre has a terrible nickname. I’m not talking about GSP, his initials, that one is fine. I’m talking about “Rush.” He should drop it altogether. Not only does it sound dumb, but it takes away from him. The best fighters have good nicknames like Jon “Bones” Jones and Anderson “Spider” Silva. We’ll never think that Georges “Rush” St. Pierre is in that category.

So, what are we really going to talk about GSP? How about the fact that his next fight could very likely going to be his first loss since Matt Serra dethroned him?

The way I see it, St. Pierre has two options for opponents: Either a superfight against Anderson Silva, or welterweight No. 1 contender Johny Hendricks.

Let’s get one thing straight, if this superfight goes down, it will either be at a catchweight, or GSP will be moving up to middleweight. Moving up would give Silva a big advantage and a catchweight bout would be still be a bit more in Spider’s favour. But either way, you can rightfully assume that Silva would emerge victorious. If I was picking that fight, I’d say either Silva wins by decision or KOs GSP in the third round.

But with Hendricks, the bout we’re most likely to see, I still don’t think that the champ has the best odds to come out with his hand raised.

As Hendricks demonstrated against Carlos Condit at UFC 158, he is the total package. He has the wrestling skills to defend against GSP and maybe even take him down, he has explosive standup power and he can take a punch – with a smile. He looks like an absolute lunatic too.

“Bigg Rigg” has been the No. 1 contender to GSP’s title for a while now as well. He is certainly deserving. Also, it can’t be overlooked that he has beaten everyone that GSP has, and has looked better than the champ in doing so. Namely, he finishes most of his fights. When was the last time St. Pierre didn’t take one to the scorecards? That was against B.J. Penn in early 2009 – more than four years ago – and that was a corner stoppage TKO.

You can easily argue that GSP was ducking Hendricks with this fight, taking on the No. 3-ranked welterweight in Nick Diaz, someone he had bad blood with.

Now, the time for running is over and GSP’s reign will never be in more jeopardy.